Patent Litigation

Patents define the patent holder’s right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or otherwise profiting from an invention. Filing a lawsuit for patent infringement is how a patentee excludes others and seeks damages for infringement. In other words, the stakes could hardly be higher. A single patent case can spell fortune or disaster, and the commercial ripples can be profound. A single verdict, judgment, or settlement can affect business and consumer activity on a local, national, or even global scale.

With such high stakes comes aggressive litigation, and the need for excellent legal counsel. Patent litigation is not an arena for the inexperienced. Companies and law firms pour extraordinary resources into pursuing and defending patent claims, and patent litigation is notoriously expensive and commercially disruptive. The attorney fees alone can be ruinous. Successful patent litigants are those who, as early as possible, establish a litigation budget, establish litigation goals, and hire litigation counsel capable of pursuing those goals in a timely manner and in line with the established budget.

An individual or business faced with even the remote possibility of a patent lawsuit should hire experienced counsel counsel with experience specifically in patent litigation as soon as possible. It is never a good idea to ignore patent disputes or attempt to address them without counsel. Some of the most important maneuvering and strategic calls in a patent dispute happen long before any complaint is filed.

Our Patent Litigation Practice

Our experience litigating patent disputes is wide-ranging and impressive. Our lawyers have successfully worked on some of the largest and most significant patent lawsuits in the United States. We have also worked on local disputes affecting primarily Minnesota individuals and businesses. The technologies involved in our patent cases have included everything from fishing bobbers to cutting-edge computer technology.

As patent litigators, we thrive on the details. We excel at dissecting a particular patent or technology, identifying a technology’s value, and assessing industry trends that could implicate the approach to any particular patent suit. We specialize in frank answers and honest appraisals, even when they mean recommending solutions other than litigation. Our philosophy is that commonsense questions from a client deserve commonsense answers from its lawyers.

In every patent case, we work with our client to identify litigation goals and establish a litigation budget as early as possible. Then we work with each client to map out a plan of attack focused to obtain each clients desired results at a budget that makes sense. Patent litigation should not require a blank check or unrestrained legal fees, and we are happy to discuss our results-based fee agreements. Our goals include minimizing expense and providing value measuring up to each client’s investment in our firm as legal counsel. Above all, our clients can count on us to aggressively pursue the results they want in every patent case.

Representative Cases *

Intellex, Inc. v. BodyForce, LLC, case no. 07-00170 (Minnesota): Myers, Boebel & MacLeod L.L.P. represented a manufacturer and distributor of adjustable weights accused of patent infringement. The case settled on confidential terms in June 2007.

Mosher v. Weeda, case no. 07-00176 (Minnesota): Myers, Boebel & MacLeod L.L.P. represented a manufacturer and distributor of fishing bobbers accused of patent infringement. Shortly after Myers, Boebel & MacLeod L.L.P. made an appearance in the case, the plaintiff agreed to dismiss the suit with no payment from our client.

Arctic Cat Inc. v. Injection Research Specialists, Inc. and Pacer Industries Inc., case no. 01-543 (Minnesota)*. Aaron Myers was part of a team representing Arctic Cat in patent litigation involving multiple parties and events spanning more than a decade. Arctic Cat was accused of infringing patents for electronic fuel injection technology and presented with a $100 million demand. In 2005, Arctic Cat received summary judgment rulings in its favor on six separate legal grounds. Those rulings established the invalidity and unenforceability of the critical patent, and established Arctic Cats non-infringement as to certain accused products.

TV Interactive Data Corporation v. Microsoft Corp., No. C02-02385 (N.D. California)*. Nick Boebel and Niall MacLeod were part of a team which sued Microsoft on behalf of TVI, a small California technology company, asserting that Microsoft’s Windows operating system software products infringed several patents covering apparatus and methods for autoplaying media on insertion. Plaintiff accused all versions of Windows from Windows 95 forward of infringement. The case settled in October 2005 with Microsoft taking a license under the patents.

St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, Inc. v. Canon, Inc. et al., case no. 03-241 (Delaware)*
St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, Inc. v. Sony Corp. et al., case no. 01-557 (D. Delaware)*.
Nick Boebel was part of a team representing St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants in litigation against a number of manufacturers and distributors of multi-format digital cameras. More information about the cases is available here.

(* Indicates a case worked on previous to joining Myers, Boebel & MacLeod L.L.P.)